A soft-landing experiment on organometallic cluster ions:: infrared spectroscopy of V(benzene)2 in Ar matrix

Vanadium (V)benzene cluster ions, produced by laser ablation with reaction toward benzene vapor, were size-selected and deposited into a low-temperature Ar matrix. Infrared spectrum of V-1(benzene)(2) in the Ar matrix was measured after one-hour deposition with the deposition energy of 20 eV. The spectrum was in agreement with both the reported spectrum and our theoretical calculations, showing that (1) V-1(benzene)(2), prepared in the gas-phase reaction, takes a sandwich structure and that (2) the ions were soft-landed onto the Ar matrix and were neutralized by charge transfer from a metal substrate without fragmentation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.